WSP to help design Royal BC Museum’s new collections building
WSP, a Montreal-headquartered design and engineering consultancy, has won a contract to provide engineering services for the development of the new Royal BC Museum (RBCM) Collections and Research Building (CRB) near Victoria, BC.
Located in the suburb of Colwood, the 15,200-square-metre facility will house the province’s collections, BC Archives, and RBCM’s research departments. The mass timber-designed building will include learning spaces and research labs focused on making collections more accessible. The design will also “reflect Indigenous cultural connections to the land and territory on which it is built,” WSP said in a press release.
WSP will provide a range of services on the project, including mechanical, electrical, and civil engineering; lighting, audiovisual, and security design; and energy management, ecology, and carbon modeling services.
“The new Collections and Research Building will help protect centuries of invaluable information and artifacts by creating a resilient environment for those pieces not on display at the Museum. Our team is excited for the opportunity to use our expertise to create this dynamic new home for these important pieces of British Columbia’s rich history," said Doug Redmond, VP in the buildings practice at WSP.
The WSP team will work with project partners Maple Reinders, a Mississauga-based construction firm, and Vancouver-based Michael Green Architecture.
Maple Reinders was awarded a $204.8-million contract by the BC government to design and build the facility – which is expected to break ground in summer 2023 and open to the public in summer 2026.
WSP is one of the world’s largest design and engineering consultancies in the world, with more than 66,000 global employees and $11.93 billion in annual revenue. The firm is the sum of the various large firms acquired by Canadian firm Genivar in the last decade, including UK-based WSP (2012), US-based Parsons Brinckerhoff (2014), Mississauga-based Golder (2020), the environment and infrastructure business of UK-based Wood Group (2022), and UK-based RPS Group (2022).
